


The Hunter

by spellwing777



Category: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Genre: Because this fic ain't no joke, But it's not exactly pleasant, Dealing with abuse by murdering people is Entreri's whole modus operandi, Entreri reenacting that curbstomp scene from american history X, FRkinkmeme, Forgot I had this one actually, I mean this is cannon, Jarlaxle is trying to help but to be honest this is WAY above his challenge rating, Okay that's enough with the joke tags, Those warnings are there for a REASON, Trans Character, you know the one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25327729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellwing777/pseuds/spellwing777
Summary: The tops of the high mountains tremble and the tangled wood echoes awesomely with the outcry of beasts, earth quakes and the sea also where fishes shoal. But the goddess with a bold heart turns every way destroying the race of wild beasts-Hymn 27 To Artemis
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	The Hunter

The wizard gasped desperately. He had known that the assassin was a formidable opponent, but he had felt that he could handle him; not comfortably, but could at least come out on top. The man was almost unnaturally fast, his dagger and sword were powerful, but he had no range. And with a telekinetic wall preventing him from closing, the mage had at least a decent chance of killing him with a bolt or magic missile while it stayed up. He, however, had not factored in the man’s companion into the fight.

And that was  _ more  _ than enough to push the odds in favor of the assassin.

The flamboyant drow mercenary had burst into the chamber and waved a wand; and now his shield was down. He’d also thrown a wad of congealing goo at him, which he had narrowly dodged. And now he had to contend with fireballs and daggers and all sorts of nonsense. Distracted so efficiently, he didn’t notice one of his items-a gold ring-was vibrating. He was only able to find this out when he was able to re-cast his shield and was able to hide behind it for a few moments to catch his breath.

He gazed curiously at it for a moment; confused. It seemed to be reacting towards Entreri, which didn’t make much sense. The ring was supposed to detect spells cast on people or objects, like polymorph or charmed; and while the weapons were indeed magical, it seemed to be the man himself that was triggering the ring.

He looked at the assassin, understanding dawning upon him.  _ Of course!  _ The man was world-renowned for his almost unnatural grace and speed...perhaps they were magical in origin. If he dispelled them, he might very well be crippled! The mage beamed wildly; a sliver of hope in his soul. He lashed out as soon as the temporary wall fell, his target clear.

Entreri narrowed his eyes at the waving hands of the mage; and he started running forward, suspecting that the mage was going to cast an area effect spell, and wanted to interrupt him before he finished.

He suddenly staggered under a wave of disorientation; feeling like something ghostly had passed through him, leaving him shaky, weak, and slightly nauseous. An invisible attack; not like the crackling wave of a lightning spell or an ominous red orb of a magic missile. He briefly wondered if it could be a ‘charm person’ or ‘polymorph’ spell; but seeing as how he didn’t feel any less murderous towards that mage and he didn’t sprout wings, he continued on.

The mage only had a moment to look dismayed before Jarlaxle slid a dagger into his ribs.

“Victory at last!” The drow crowed, triumphantly. He turned towards his partner, smiling. “I thought he would never die-”

He abruptly stopped, staring.

“What?” Entreri demanded, annoyed.

...And burst out laughing.

* * *

_ “Cute.” The man’s breath stank. He leered closer, reaching with a meaty, hairy hand. The kid shrunk further under the table, clinging to the wall. Dried petals from the bunch of drying flowers on the table tickled down on trembling skin. Mother picked them; hoping the scent would cover the smell of rot and raw poverty. It never did. _

_ “For the last time, my kid isn’t on the table.”Mother hissed.  _

_ “Just a year, and it will be.” Father grunted. “You were younger when you started.” _

_ “One more year.” She licked her lips, nervously. Begging. _

_ “One year.” He grunted.  _

_ Money clinked. The moans started in the other room, the walls shaking. Their eyes met. _

_ “One year.”  _

_ There was a terrible light in his eyes; the light of finality. Artemis cringed, squeezing further against the opposite wall. _

* * *

Entreri opened his eyes. 

No.

_ Artemis. _

She curled her lips.

She hadn’t had that dream in a long time; more than twenty years. It still left a bitter taste of desperation in her mouth, a leaden weight of fear in her stomach. She spat, and cursed in anger.

“Awake I see.” Jarlaxle grinned at her. She glared at him; an irrepressible morning person. She was used to working at night, and sleeping during the day.

“Cheer up, Entreri.” He only grinned widely at her snarl. “In moments, one of my mages will meet with us and remove this enchantment and-”

“No.” She snarled.

He gave her a puzzled look; then laughed. “Well, if you prefer to be female, I have to say you could have chosen a better form. Even if some like that rough, fierce look. Perhaps I can even have the mage improve-”

“No.” She stood. “And it’s Artemis.”

Jarlaxle shrugged. He understood the reason for a false name; he could imagine the respect that could be lost back in his (or is it hers?) hometown with such a tale of an embarrassing situation. But he rather felt it was unneeded. It’s not like people wouldn’t realize who he was as soon as they saw he was walking with Jarlaxle. 

“I don’t want your mages.” She shook her head. “I’ll find one I trust.”

Jarlaxle cocked his head, really puzzled now. What objection could she have with his mages? Apparently he was more paranoid than he thought.

She hefted her pack. “Let’s go.”

She kept them moving at a breakneck pace. They were far out into the wilderness; and it would be quite some time before they would reach a town of any size, with a mage that could reverse this. She gritted her teeth; and Jarlaxle looked at her, confused and suspicious. She would not be able to keep him off the track for long.

Feeling his eyes on her; she shuddered. 

* * *

_ “The bastard offspring of a whore is only good for one thing.” The moist, alcohol-laden breath ghosted over skin; still could be felt on the back of a vulnerable neck. _

_ Mother had sold her child for pennies; to a man with grasping paws and greasy skin. He was master and teacher now, and he taught well. Multiple times. Left his purchase bruised and whimpering; praying to the gods for release, for help, and then seeing the futility of it when they didn’t answer. _

_ “I’ll teach you how to make them feel good.” He’d hissed. _

* * *

Jarlaxle was beginning to notice a rather worrying trend in Entreri (He still thought of him as Entreri; Artemis was a foreign concept, a stranger). Each day, the black circles under his eyes seemed to be growing, deepening. On watch, he noticed his partner’s eyes open and staring at the stars; or closed but breathing too quickly to be asleep. 

And he was hostile. If he was described as intimidating before; this was far worse. He radiated an aura of anger; but he could see a strange expression flicker behind his eyes. The look was there and gone; but he was sharp enough to spot it, but not sharp enough to truly see what it was. 

The tenseness infected him too, made him anxious by proxy. It felt dangerous to be near him, but perversely he wanted to be closer. He was as attached to his partner as much as a man like him could be attached to anybody; and it was enough to wish he could reassure his stressed partner. He managed to restrain himself; knowing that Entreri would never accept coddling, no matter how well intentioned.

He still insisted on that furious pace, as if he was on a deadline to reach a mage that could reverse this, and they found a large enough town ahead of whatever deadline he was keeping; and the mage there smiled at them. 

“My good mage!” Jarlaxle smiled back. “We are in need of your assistance!”

In his peripheral vision he could see his partner snarl. Confused, he pressed on; he was always the one that negotiated prices for supplies and services, he couldn’t see why this should be any different.

“See, my friend here has been enchanted-”

He stopped abruptly, looking at the tight hand around his wrist in surprise.

Entreri hissed “I’ll handle this, you can wait out-”

“What enchantment?” The mage interrupted.

“He’s been polymorphed.” Jarlaxle explained, noticing uneasily how much Entreri tensed. “Into a female.”

She snorted. “No ‘he’ hasn’t. I’d detect it if ‘he’ was.”

She shrugged. “Not that I have anything against it, mind. Some people felt that they were meant to be another gender than what they were born with; I deal with it all the time. It’ll cost you more to polymorph you than it would to remove it, that’s all.”

He blinked, stunned, watching Entreri whirl about and march off.

“Well, are you going to get polymorphed or what?” The mage shouted at his retreating back. “You gotta tell me, you know! It takes a while to prepare!”

She looked at Jarlaxle, annoyed. “Well, are  _ you _ going to get anything?”

“...I...” He came back to himself.  “...Prepare the spell.” 

He shoved coins into her hands; ignoring the amount, and ran to catch up to his partner.

* * *

_ She’d been able to dress like a boy, and pass for one too; when she escaped. Continued to do so, even when she was accepted into the guild, among the unsuspecting boys around her.  _

_ But the quartermaster, in charge of training the boys for their work, had found her hidden in a corner, small swells on her chest; smears of blood on the insides of her thighs. Betrayed by her body. Becoming a woman, despite all of her best attempts and wishing. Begging the gods she wouldn’t turn into her mother; hopeless and helpless. A whore; good for only one thing. _

_ And he’d laughed and laughed. His smile had been like the man that bought her, like her father’s; eyes with a terrible knowing light, with finality. _

* * *

He stared briefly at him, heavy silence in the air. “You...you are  _ actually  _ -”

“You ask too many questions.” He snapped.

“Entreri-”

He whirled on him. “ _ Artemis. _ Entreri is not...this.”

_ This.  _ The way that was said...

He approached, putting a friendly hand on his shoulder; opening his mouth to reassure, despite knowing that he would sneer at his words-

Pain exploded in his mouth, and suddenly he could feel a wall at his back and a forearm pressed against his throat. 

“Don’t. Touch. Me.”He hissed. 

And he saw the flicker in those eyes again, and it was  _ fear _ . Fear like a cornered animal, snarling and foaming. For the first time in a long time he felt a little afraid; his partner was suddenly unpredictable, unreasonable. Swaying on the edge. But he was not just afraid for himself; he was afraid for his partner. He never lost his control; not in the face of death, and not to the crystal. But  _ now _ ...

“Entreri-” He tried to speak around the arm pressing into his throat, but was interrupted again.

_ “Artemis!”  _ He roared into his face. People were starting to stare.

“Artemis.” He conceded, dropping his voice. “...please calm down.”

A twitch under his eye; and he withdrew slightly, perhaps realizing how extreme his behavior had been.

“I am your partner, Ent-Artemis.” He continued, in a low voice. “I am on your side.”

He withdrew quickly, ducking his head. “...I know.”

Jarlaxle blinked in surprise; at the rare acknowledgement of mutual feelings of light attachment. Subtle and understated, but there nonetheless; only once revealed when Entreri had risked his own life to save him from the crystal...and from himself.

He straightened his clothes, brushing off imaginary dust to cover the awkwardness with nonchalance. “Well, whatever the issue your mage has with the spell, I should hope she returns you to your proper form. I have no preference to your form-you are still you, and it’s all the same to me, whether you are female or a bronze dragon-but I imagine it is getting rather annoying to you that people keep expecting you to wear a dress.”

Finally, a smile. Of course, on Entreri, it was just a twitch on one side of his mouth, jerking one side up briefly into what could be mistaken for a grimace...but still, a smile. He felt relieved, and then intrigued again by a small flicker of-not fear-but affection, perhaps; the first time since he had partnered with  [ Zaknafien ](http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Zaknafien_Do%27Urden) that anyone had looked at him with that soft gleam in their eyes. In a rash of impulsiveness, before he could even think, he smiled back, sincere and warm.

Entreri blinked and moved away; the look quickly hidden, but Jarlaxle imagined he could still half see it. “Come! I spotted a board here; perhaps we can fulfill a few tasks and make some money whilst we wait.”

He looked at him. “Wait for what?”

“For the polymorph spell, of course.” He chuckled. “The mage assured me that it would take some time for her to prepare.”

This time, when he put a hand on his partner’s shoulder, he didn’t jerk away.

* * *

Of course, he now realized now that attempting to fight while his partner was in a different form was  _ probably _ not the best idea. It only occurred to him now that the slight differences would severely hamper his partner, who probably had not had enough to adjust to a new body. 

_ Why didn’t he  _ <b> **_say </b> _ ** _ something?  _ He thought, frustrated.  _ Goddess forbid he admits to any form of weakness.  _

He had seen his partner stumble; the lower center of gravity in the female form throwing him off, and was on the floor, struggling against a man that ordinarily he would have been able to throw off.  _ Less muscular form; Entreri you can’t fight like you are still the same!  _ Internally, Jarlaxle still knew his partner was the same irascible, intriguing friend he’d known all along, but such sentiments didn’t extend to his altered body. 

“Fucking bitch,” The man was snarling as he approached, to intent on his target to notice Jarlaxle. “You killed my brother, you whore, I’ll teach you to fucking-”

He kicked the man off his partner, feeling a rib break, leaving the man groaning on the floor. He reached down automatically to help Entreri up, and froze abruptly.

The eyes were glassy, and he was shaking, sipping air in small gulps. He frowned in concern.

“Are you injured?” He asked, again uneasy. He hoped it was just an injury; the look on his face was...strange; unsettling in its unfamiliarity.

* * *

_ The quartermaster had laughed and laughed, and then pinned her under him, slapping her around and she was powerless to really do anything. _

_ “You’re ridiculous.” He snorted. “Do you really think that dressing up like a man makes any difference? That cutting your hair keeps you safe? Go back to the streets with all the other whores; ply your trade there.” _

_ He yanked at her belt teasingly, effortlessly keeping her wrists pinned, to prove his point. _

_ “I could teach ‘ya a lesson right here; and you wouldn’t even be able to stop me.” He cuffed her one last time, and then dropped her contemptuously. “Fortunately, I’m feeling generous. I’ll just sell ya to our prostitute ring, get our money back. Hey, at least you’d have a roof over your head and a pimp that’ll protect ya; might not even slap you too hard.” _

_ He turned away partially, to grab a short piece of rope from his belt, intending to rope her like cattle; to sell to the slaughterhouse. _

_ “Better than perching on a streetcorner; they always end up in a gutter-” _

_ He stopped and blinked stupidly, staring at the bloody blade trembling in small, pale hands. He slowly looked down to the rapidly spreading red stain on his chest. Dark crimson, as red as the swaying flowers that grew in cracks in Memnon; red as the blood of her first kill on the blade, as red as the damming smears on her legs.  _

* * *

_ As red at the mist in front of her eyes.  _

She snarled and leapt on the man; the outstretched hand ignored. She saw the man’s eyes widen in panic, the whites of his eyes practically glowing; and it was like blood in the water, incensing her to rarely-reached levels of wrath. She gripped his coarse hair in one hand and slammed his face onto the edge of the hearth, smashing his nose and releasing a stream of crimson.

_ A flow of red- _

Another slam scattered teeth across the stone. 

_ Damming red- _

He gasped when she lifted him up; speckling the floor with drops.

_ Smears on her pants- _

Another hit drove the corner of the hearth into his eye socket, leaving a bloody gaping hole.

_ Swells on her chest- _

He started to shudder; body jerking as the brain was rattled in the skull, prompting small seizures.

_ Like her mother- _

The skin started to crack and peel under the assault, revealing the skull, slick and bloody.

_ A hopeless- _

Bone cracked, split; driving sharp splinters into the brain that finally killed him.

_ Helpless- _

The face was now completely unrecognizable; lips and nose just smears on the stone.

_ WHORE.  _

_ Whore.  _ The word reverberated in the small room, smelling like pipe-smoke and fresh blood. The man was just a cooling corpse now, but his partner crouched over it still, like a beast over its kill. Jarlaxle licked his lips nervously and kept a cautious distance between him and Artemis-because that  _ was  _ Artemis, because Entreri was never this violent, this bloodthirsty-

And he is reminded of a deity of the same name, Artemis, the goddess of the wilderness and wild beasts. How she had once turned a man that had spotted her bathing into a stag, to be hunted down by his own friends and torn apart by dogs.

_ Artemis the hunter.  _

He schooled his face into a calm placid look, and attempted a stab at normalcy. 

“I believe he is dead.”

She brought her head up to fix him with a stare, black eyes blank. After a moment of silence, she rose to walk out of the room, ignoring the steaks of blood on her shirt. 

* * *

_ She pawned the quartermasters sword; too big for her small, delicate (useless) hands, and anything else she could find in his room or on his cooling body. His coinpurse was heavy, as heavy as the small, hidden box in his room once she picked the lock (locks had been her friends since her escape from the slaver) and it had been enough, just barely enough. The mage hadn’t asked questions; old and one-toothed he could use all the business he could get to feed his thirst for the dark brown bottles. The quartermaster had been right (she didn’t even remember his name) she couldn’t hide. Her mother’s curse would follow her, unless she could break it. Unless she could crawl out of the bonds that wrapped around her (like the red scarves that hung outside of her home, advertising. Like the chains of the slaver, black iron) she would never be free. _

_ The man cast his spell, and she exchanged the painful lumps on her chest, the deep ache in her gut, for a heaviness between her legs and roughness on her jaw.  _

_ Artemis was dead.  _

_ From now on, he would be Entreri.  _

* * *

He found her an hour or so later, sitting on a curb that looked out over the river at the edge of town. The moon was fat and full, filtering through the trees to touch a face that was neither male nor female; the shifting lights both highlighting the rough short hair and the sleek high cheekbones.

“I’m supposed to be dead.” She muttered.

“...You look alive to me.” Jarlaxle hazarded. It seemed she was in a mood to be irreverent. He decided to go along with it.

“Supposed to be dead.” She continued, like he hadn’t even spoken. “Artemis died when she was thirteen. Entreri was born out of her corpse.”

He looked her over. She seemed to want to talk, so perhaps he could ask.

“Why?”

She mulled it over. It was a simple question. Complicated answer. 

“I’m weak.” She said. “Born female. Only good for one thing.”

It sounded so much like the rhetoric in his homeland; every male being taught that he was good for only being used by the females, that he felt a little uncomfortable.

She turned to him, the moonlight reflecting in hollow eyes. “You understand. A little.”

He swallowed, staying in the shadows to cover his discomfort, even though he knew it was rather useless. Artemis or Entreri; either could read him frighteningly well.

“You have a choice up here, on the surface.” He tried to counter.

“I was born from a whore; I would be a whore. No choice, no say in the matter.” She laughed harshly. “At age eight my mother sold me for pennies to save her own skin; to pay at the temple for healing.”

“My new master taught me my profession.” She said, offhandedly. Her voice dipped, went quieter. “  _ ‘I’ll teach you how to make them feel good.’ _ ” __

He didn’t like the sound of that; how much it sounded like something she had heard hissed at her so often that she had memorized it.

“...Taught you.” He didn’t want to know. He really didn’t. But he said it anyways.

“My mother’s profession.” She murmured. Still calm, but fraying. “At nine; before I’d even had my first blood, even.”

“I suppose I should be grateful he did it then.” And her voice started to take on a hysterical lilt. “The methods to force an abortion-”

Her voice cracked, warbled. She couldn’t finish the sentence. 

Jarlaxle gnawed on his lip; wishing for his famed eloquence to help him now. Duplicitous words that could barter and wheedle him out of almost any situation; lies and half truths that could bend any situation to his will. But he remembered Zak; how one night he’d come to his door, scratching like a dog begging for entrance. He had been young-they had been young-then; new members of the training circle at Melee-Magathere. He was a commoner and had caught the eye of a noble house; they were his sponsor for him to attend the academy. On the condition that he would be the matron’s weapon’s master, and her concubine.

He had been so heartbreakingly young...

He’d crawled into his arms, shaking and sweating, lying with him between the sheets tented over them like they were children hiding. He’d smelled of perfume and sex and he didn’t have to speak for Jarlaxle to guess what had happened when he had been summoned to meet his new mistress. He’d held him while he sobbed, tightly gripping him; like he was trying to keep him from slipping away.

There had been no words then.

There were none now.

So he reached out tentatively to her, a light touch on the shoulder; hoping that he was not making it worse. It was the touch of men that had broken her, and he wasn’t sure if the touch of another would help; but it was all that he had to offer. She turned to him, accepting the touch, even letting him sit next to her with his arms lightly around her shoulders. It helped that he was not like the man that bought her; broad, paw-like hands that were more like an animal than human, sweating and greasy and smelling of decay. Slim and lean and almost-female; though male enough not make her think  _ mother  _ with her sex-stink and swaying, pendulous breasts, eyes dark with hopelessness. He was neither, and acceptable.  And it helped, too, that she had a friendship with him-halting and tentative- _ but it was friendship.  _

It allowed her to let him pull her in, to lean on his chest while her breath heaved in her lungs; while she gasped out words like  _ whore  _ and  _ mother  _ and  _ no choice.  _ Her shoulders shook so hard it almost threw off his arms, but he kept clinging tighter and tighter until it was almost uncomfortable; like he was afraid she would shake to pieces and he would lose her if he didn’t clutch her tight. It came in waves, ebbed and flowed, but the tears and shakes did stop. She rested for a moment, just feeling the cool light of the moon on her hot, swollen face; chin on his shoulder. Eventually, she shifted-meaning to pull away-but he tightened his grip more. She felt more than heard him swallow; his throat and cheek against the side of her face. Artemis lightly touched his elbow, reassuring. 

“Better now.” Her voice was quiet, hoarse.

He still didn’t let go.

He was still remembering how Zak had drifted away from him after that night, taken away by their dividing paths in life and the coldness that settled in him, wedged them apart. They had pretended it never happened, and their refusal to talk about it-Jarlaxle to afraid to push, Zak all too willing to numb it out-had let the distance grow.

“When you go to the mage tomorrow,” He managed around the strangling lump in his throat “Are you going to hide behind your male disguise, and we’ll never talk about this again? Pretend it never happened?”

“It’s not a disguise.” Her fingers tightened around his arm. “It’s who I am.”

She leaned back, forcing him to loosen his grip, but he still didn’t let go entirely. Neither did she.

“I have been male since I was thirteen.” She looked into his face. “Over twenty years. The majority of my life has been spent as male. This female body is almost as foreign to me as it would be to you.”

He considered that for a moment, but continued on. He had already lost one friend through inaction. “That doesn’t answer my question. Is this whole conversation going to vanish with Artemis when Entreri comes back?”

“Artemis is  _ me. ” _ She stressed. “I...said once that Entreri is not...but he-I-wouldn’t be the same without...my experiences as Artemis.”

She paused.

“And I’m glad this...happened.” She swallowed. “That you stayed with me. I will not forget it.”

Finally,  _ finally  _ he relaxed, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He let his arms drop, only now feeling the soreness in them from the muscles being tense for so long. He leaned back and now he looked her over, letting himself truly see her; without his brain insisting on  _ him  _ instead of  _ her  _ or seeing the look as only the effects of a polymorph spell gone wrong.

Rough. Fierce.  _ The Hunter.  _

“I take it back. What I said earlier about your appearance; about the mage improving your looks.” 

She blinked, cocking her head.

“You are beautiful.”

She smiled, affection in her eyes; and that was what made his partner beautiful.


End file.
